The recent Formula 1 season finale at Abu Dhabi’s Yas Marina circuit was a race that brought back memories of the season’s opening races, with Lewis Hamilton in dominant form, notching up his sixth “Grand Slam” of pole, win, fastest lap, leading from start to finish, and Mercedes in a different league to the rest of the field. 

In fact this season, Hamilton has chalked up 11 wins, 17 podium finishes from 21 races, always finishing in the points.

As such, the Abu Dhabi race felt like a formality, with Hamilton’s time setting a new track record, remarkably being achieved on tyres that were 27 laps old 

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen did well too, finishing in the top three of the championship for the first time, having an excellent season overall. He scored the first career pole position in Hungary and took three wins this season, bringing his career total to eight. As well, he made fewer mistakes this season, which, in the past, were a result of his impatient nature and which had cost him dearly in previous seasons. It is looking increasingly as though Verstappen, who is in the most clinical form of his career, will be challenging Hamilton in 2020.

With the Red Bull – Honda partnership also taking a number of steps forward during the season and the results beginning to show, Red Bull are looking good in the battle for the constructor’s championship in 2020.

On the flip side though, Ferrari’s season looked promising during winter testing, but at the close of the 2019 season, it turned out to be one of the missed opportunities by the time the first half was over.

After the summer break, the Scuderia found a new injection of pace and six consecutive poles from Belgium to Mexico and at the same time, racking up three wins in a row, from Belgium to Singapore, the highlight being Charles Leclerc’s win in Monza – in only his second year in Formula 1 and his first with a top team, Leclerc’s talent is undeniable and he is destined for greatness over the next decade.

However they self-imploded in the final part of this season – and coming into 2020, team principal Mattia Binotto has a huge task on his hands to manage his driver pairing to best suit the needs of the team as well as to provide a car that is competitive on all types of track.

For the remainder of the pack, Carlos Sainz emerged with “best of the rest” honoured thanks to a thrilling final lap move past Nico Hulkenberg to take the point he needed to move clear of Pierre Gastly while his McLaren team claimed the same “prize” in the battle against the constructors.

Torro Rosso also did well, finishing in sixth, equalling their best ever finish in the Constructors Championship. 

As well, two rookies, Lando Norris and Alex Albion, stood out, but the other rookie, reigning F2 champion George Russell unfortunately was not able to show his talents. Nonetheless, their presence can only be a good thing for Formula 1 especially as the previous generation, the one that followed on from the Schumacher era, is now inevitably coming to the end of its time in the sport.